Jim Shannon – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Shannon on 2015-11-16.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many people have had corrective laser eye surgery in each of the last five years.

Alistair Burt

Corrective laser eye surgery (surgery to correct a refractive error) is not routinely carried out on the National Health Service other than for exceptional clinical reasons. Refractive errors can be successful corrected with glasses or contact lenses. Data is not collected on the number of corrective laser eye surgery procedures carried out in the independent sector or on the number of successful or unsuccessful procedures.

The following table, provided by the Health and Social Care Information Centre, shows a count of Finished Admission Episodes (FAEs) for those diagnosed with disorders of refraction and accommodation who underwent corrective laser eye surgery between 2009-10 to 2013-14. This data includes a range of laser eye surgery procedures and is therefore not exclusive to corrective laser eye surgery.

Activity in English NHS Hospitals and English NHS commissioned activity in the independent sector

Source:Hospital Episode Statistics (HES), Health and Social Care Information Centre